Schools across Italy have received bomb threats for the second day in a row, sparking fresh panic and evacuations.
Some 1,800 schools, from Milan in the north to Sicily in the south, reported receiving a similar threat to one that created chaos in Italy on Wednesday – even though no devices have been found anywhere.
The Italian government has advised schools that “in the absence of concrete evidence beyond the simple receipt of a mass email indicating a danger, buildings must not not be evacuated”.
Schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland received threats on Wednesday, too. It is unclear whether the incidents are connected.
On Thursday morning, a bomb alert at a Calais rail station delayed international and national train services in northern France.
The latest incidents follow a series of bomb hoaxes last week against airports and airlines in a number of European countries.
Although a number of threats were claimed by an extremist misogynistic group, it later denied any link to the false warnings.
Wednesday’s email threat – sent to 6,300 out of a total of 7,476 Italian state schools – was said to be from a certain “Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan”.
Some officials say it originated in Taiwan.
A similar message sent to Italian schools on Thursday, again signed by Mikhail Andropov, is said to have been sent from the account of a teacher in the Philippines whose account is believed to have been hacked.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken of “a strategy intended to cause alarm and concern”.
